Daylight by David Baldacci

David Baldacci has written a 4-book series about FBI Special Agent Atlee Pine, and I’ve recently reviewed the first two books, Long Road to Mercy and A Minute to Midnight. The third novel is Daylight. While the books could be read individually, this series was clearly meant to be read in order. The overall theme is that Atlee has grown up with remarkable tragedies. We now note that her parents were drinking and smoking dope into the wee hours on the night that an intruder broke into their home, caused Atlee to have a skull fracture which nearly killed her, and then kidnapped her identical twin sister, Mercy. While Atlee recovered, her twin was never seen again. On Atlee’s 19^th birthday, her father committed suicide, and it was not long thereafter, when Atlee came home from college to find that her mother had disappeared. Despite her expert abilities in finding people, Atlee had never been able to get any information about her mother.

 

It was the kidnapping that gave Atlee the motivation to join the FBI, not wanting others to suffer the losses that she had endured. After a rapid rise through the ranks, she eventually decided to leave the metro areas and to opt for a one-person office in St. George, Utah. She was the nearest federal officer to the Grand Canyon where she could operate on her own. Atlee learned that her mother had been doing some undercover work for an unnamed government branch that led to an important conviction and incarceration of a major Mafia figure, which led to seeking revenge against Atlee’s mother. The kidnapping of her sister and the near death experience of Atlee, then six years old, was the result of this revenge.

 

Much of the action of the three novels has to do with the ongoing search for Mercy. But, Atlee has a talent for stumbling into other cases that benefit from her attention. However, that always takes her away from the primary search for her sister. The other cases get increasingly complicated as the three books progress. In this book, there is a very high level government corruption happening, and as Atlee uncovered more information, some senior people are being hidden from her, or are not being compliant, like the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and a Deputy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

 

By the end of the third book, Atlee has learned that her sister is probably still alive although she has endured unspeakable horrors of torture, and it is possible that she murdered the people who were keeping her hostage over many years. She was thought to be severely emotionally damaged, and after her escape, the trail for her had gone cold. In addition, she learned that her father’s death had been faked and her mother may have joined him and are living somewhere with hidden identities.

I'm leaving in the morning to travel through Arizona, and I have the fourth book and concluding book Mercy on tape to listen to during the drive.